Then, with a startling abruptness, the smile left her face and she put his hand away. “There is no time for this,” she said. “I sent for you to speak of danger. You may not live out this night.”
“If you wanted to take my mind off you,” said Stark, “that statement is just the thing to do it.”
His grim humor awakened no answer in her sober face. She took his hand and led him to an open window.
The westward face of the building rose sheer from the edge of the coral cliff. Out beyond the window stretched the vastness of the deepening Martian night, with no moons yet up but a great vault of stars tenting the desert. A little to the left, down at the base of the cliff, were the torches of the camp, winking and shaking in the wind.
Up from beneath them came the murmurous, whistling, piping voices of the wind in the hollow coral. But also there came the sounds of the camp, of squealing beasts, of a voice bawling an order, of picket-pins being driven deeper.
“Kynon is there,” said Berild. “He waits to welcome Delgaun and the others from Valkis, who arrive tonight.”
The skin between Stark’s shoulders tightened slightly. The crisis had come sooner than he expected.
He shrugged. “Well, then, Delgaun is coming. I wasn’t afraid of him in Valkis, and I don’t fear him here.”
Berild looked at him steadily. “Fear him,” she said. “I know Delgaun.”
Their faces were only inches apart and there was something in hers that he had glimpsed there once before.
“How can you know him so well?” he asked. “You’re a Shunni woman, and he is a Valkis.”
“Do you think Kynon hasn’t been plotting with Delgaun for months?” she demanded impatiently. “Do you think I can watch a man all those times and not know whether he is dangerous?”
“Your concern for me is moving, Berild,” said Stark. “That is—if it’s sincere.”
He half expected her to flare out at him for that, but she did not. She looked at him levelly, and said, “You’re strong. And it may be that I shall need a strong man at my side.”
“To protect you? But you have Kynon!”
Berild said impatiently, “I need no one to protect me. As for Kynon, I come always second with him, and his ambitions first. He would put me aside without a thought, if it helped to realize his plans of conquest.”
“And you don’t intend to be put aside,” said Stark.
Her eyes flashed. “I do not.”
“So, the wild man may be useful,” said Stark. “I’ll say this for you. Berild—you have a certain honesty that I admire.”
She smiled wickedly. “It’s only the least of my attractions.”
Stark thought for a moment. “When Delgaun arrives, will the tribesmen down there come up into Sinharat with him and Kynon?”
Berild nodded. “Yes, for this night Kynon is to raise his standard. For that, they’ll come—even though they have a superstitious fear of this place.”
He looked at her curiously, and said, “You talk of tribesmen’s superstitions—yet you yourself are a woman of the Shunni.”
“Yes. But I do not believe what they believe. Kynon taught me better—he had education, in outland places, and I learned from him.”
“You didn’t learn ambition from him,” said Stark.
“No,” she said. “I’m tired of being just another woman. I too would like to hold a world between my hands.”
Looking at her, it came to Stark that Ashton might have more to fear than he knew, that this woman might be as great a threat to the peace of Mars as Kynon and Delgaun.
All of a sudden, the cold night wind brought through the open window a sound of excited voices from the encampment underneath the cliff.
Stark and Berild went to the window. Far out in the darkness of the desert there were little points of ruddy light that moved in a long line toward Sinharat.
Drums suddenly boomed hoarsely down in the camp below, drowning with their clamor the piping of the wind in the coral. Torches sprang to light between the tents, and the drums grew louder.
“Delgaun has come,” said Berild.
“And I must go,” said Stark.
He turned and went out of the room. In the corridor of the carven dancing-girls, he came face to face with Fianna.
“You were listening,” he said.
She did not deny it. “I hate to see foolish beasts run their throats toward the knife,” she said. “So I have a word for you, Eric John Stark.”
“Yes?”
“Don’t trust Berild too far. She is not all she seems.”
Fianna paused, and then in a whisper, she added, “Did you ever think that all of the Ramas of old might not be dead?”
All the half-formed, vague suspicions that had haunted Stark since the desert surged up in a cold tide within him.
He grasped for her, demanding, “What do you mean?”
But Fianna eluded him, and was gone like a shadow. After a moment, he turned and went out into the dark, silent street.
The drums were echoing across dead Sinharat, but as Stark went through the streets it seemed to him that above them he could hear, louder than ever before, the mocking sounds, the pipings and flutings and whisperings, that seemed to echo from the past.
XI
Shattering the night, light and sound crashed up the grand stairway of Sinharat. First came massed torch-bearers, holding their flaring brands high. Then the thundering skin drums and shrilling pipes, and then Kynon and his newcome allies, and after them the tribesmen.
As the procession climbed, the dark western face of the cliff top city leaped into the quivering light. The ancient carven faces that had for centuries looked out on nothing but darkness and silence and desert, now glared triumphantly in the shaking red rays. And despite the proud, loud clamor of drums and pipes, the eyes of climbing tribesmen glinted with doubt as they looked up and beheld the old stone faces of the Ramas.
Stark heard the uproar approaching through the streets, as he waited patiently in the darkness of a deep doorway of the building that was Kynon’s headquarters. He saw the torches, drummers, pipers and warriors march into the great square and across it toward him. He thought that Kynon was putting on a brave show indeed, to impress everyone that the men of Kesh and Shun and the men of the Low Canals were now friends and allies.
Kynon came up onto the steps in front of the old building, only a score of yards from where Stark stood in shadows. He turned and faced the torches and the glinting spears and the fierce faces.
“Bring the banner!” he cried in his bull voice.
A tall barbarian came promptly, with a black silken banner rolled on a long staff. With a gesture totally theatrical, and yet nonetheless impressive, Kynon shook the silk loose so that it flowed out on the cold wind.
“Here I raise the Banner of Death and Life!” he cried. “Death for our enemies, and life—unending life—for us who shall rule this world!”
The silken standard, unfolding on the wind, showed two white crowns, and below them a red sword, on a field of dead black.
The cry of the crowd was like the baying of a great hound.
Stark’s eyes had been searching the faces in the torchlight and now he saw the little knot of men in outland dress—Walsh, Themis, Arrod—and in front of them, Delgaun.
“I bring you not only a banner, but strong allies!” roared Kynon. “In the new era that begins, old enmities are forgotten. Delgaun of Valkis stands shoulder to shoulder with us in this conquest, and with him will march the men of the Low-Canals!”
Delgaun came up beside Kynon and faced the crowd and raised his hand. There was a response, but not a wildly enthusiastic one.
Shrewdly, Kynon did not give them time to start muttering. He said loudly, “And when Kesh and Shun, and Valkis and Jekkara, march together against the Border States, with us will figh
t brave men from far away!”
Walsh and the other two heard their cue and started up the steps. But Stark stepped out of the shadows and came up beside Delgaun and Kynon, and looked at them and smiled. He said loudly, so that all could hear, “I will follow your banner—and l greet my brother and comrade-in-arms, Delgaun of Valkis!”
He put his hand on Delgaun’s shoulder in the traditional gesture. Delgaun’s gold-colored eyes flared hot as an eagle’s, and his hand went under his cloak. He said thickly, “You bastard….”
“Do you want to ruin everything?” said Kynon in a low voice charged with agony and anger. “Return the greeting!”
Slowly, as though he would rather have torn his arm from its socket, Delgaun raised his hand and placed it on Stark’s shoulder. There was sweat on his face.
Stark grinned at him sardonically. He thought his timing had been rather good. Delgaun would try to kill him, but would not now dare to do it openly. Comradeship in arms was a sacred thing to the barbarians.
“The riders are out in the Drylands this night!” Kynon shouted to the crowd. “The fighting-men of all the tribes will soon gather here! Go back down and prepare for them. And remember…” He paused dramatically, then continued, “Remember that it is not only the loot of a world we march for, but unending life to enjoy it in through the Sending On of Minds!”
The crowd raised a storm of cheers. But it seemed to Stark that the carven stone faces of the Ramas high above them looked down at them with secret mirth.
Kynon turned abruptly and led the way into his council hall. They followed. In the torchlit room, he turned on them, looking dangerous as an angry lion.
“We’ll have this out once and for all,” he said between his teeth. “Stark, you’ve brought nothing but dissension to us since you came.”
Stark answered flatly. “An old enemy tried to kill me—and when I survived, I tried to kill him. Would you yourself have done differently?”
He looked then at Delgaun. “Luhar was my enemy, but I do not know why Delgaun should hate me. Let’s have this thing out, as you say. Delgaun, if you have cause for anger against me, say now what it is. Speak out!”
The golden eyes glared at him out of a face that had become livid. Delgaun’s lips twisted, but he did not speak.
Damn you, you can’t speak, thought Stark. You hate me because you’re jealous over Berild, but you daren’t say that out loud.
Delgaun finally muttered, “I may have been wrong. It could be that Luhar poisoned my mind against Stark.”
“Then that is that,” said Kynon.
He went over to the table and sat down behind it and let his bleak gaze rove over their faces before he spoke.
“The fighting-men will start arriving tomorrow,” he said. “I want them trained in detachments as they come in. Arrod, you’ll help Stark do that. Knighton’s cruiser should be here in two days, with the weapons we need. I want our force on the march from Sinharat two weeks from now, no later.”
A glow came into Kynon’s eagle eyes, although his voice remained hard and harsh.
“The Border States we’ll hit first will be Varl and Kathuun. They’re bound to get warning enough to close their gates. My Drylanders will make a pretense of siege. Then we’ll retreat, a little, as help comes from the two cities.”
A slow smile curved Delgaun’s lips. “Yes, help from Valkis and Jekkara. My Low-Canallers will nobly come to the assistance of the Border States. When they joyfully open their gates to us—then we all go in together.”
“Clever,” said Walsh admiringly, a smile on his coarse face.
Kynon’s big hand squeezed shut. “The fall of VarI and Kathuun will breach the whole line of the Border States. We’ll roll up that line, and in six months we’ll be in Kahora.”
Themis, a man with a dark, saturnine face who spoke little, asked, “What about the government of Earth?”
Kynon grinned. “A principle of non-intervention in Martian attain has been their policy for a long time. They’ll deplore, they’ll protest—but nothing more, and we’ll have our hands on the throat and the loot of a world.”
Stark felt cold. He could not fault this plan. It would work, and red destruction would run along the border like a spreading flame. Men would die in those cities, and most of them would be the warriors of the Drylands, so that the clever thieves of the Low Canals could reap the plunder.
There came to Stark the determination to kill Kynon with his own hand before he let this thing happen.
Kynon rose. “That’s it. You’ve got your jobs, and they won’t be easy. Get to them by the first light of morning.”
His voice stopped them as they were going. “One more thing. The soul and spirit of this whole war is the hunger for eternal life, the secret of the Ramas. If any of you let on that I don’t have that secret, if any of you even as much as smile when the Sending On of Minds is mentioned—”
He did not finish. He did not have to. What was in Kynon’s face was a threat more deadly than any he could have spoken.
Stark thought that if what he suspected was true, the joke was on Kynon, and a grim and terrible joke it was. If Berild…
He would not let himself finish that thought. It was impossible. To dream that the old, dark secret of Mars had survived, that some of the Ramas had survived, just because he saw a woman walking in moonlight and heard a serving girl’s sullen insinuation—it was too fantastic. He would forget it.
But Stark could not forget it in the days that followed. He spent each day down in the dust and glare of the desert, teaching the techniques of modern guerrilla warfare to the men of Kesh and Shun who rode constantly in from the wastes. He heard the talk of these warriors, and more even than loot they talked of unending life. He saw how their eyes followed the great black banner, with its white crowns above the crimson sword, when it went with Kynon through the camp.
Knighton’s little cruiser came in, its weapons were unloaded, and it went away again for more. Men came from Valkis and Jekkara and Barrakesh, and with these Kynon and Delgaun talked long, setting the times and routes for the great stroke against the Border, and then these too went away again.
Freka came, with the last of the fighting men of Shun. Stark saw the tall barbarian chieftain riding with his men through the camp that had now grown great, and he heard the shouts that hailed him. He went a little later to report to Kynon, and Freka was standing with him by the banner.
Stark felt the Shunni’s eyes glaring at him through half-drooping lids, yet Freka made no move.
“You’ve both had your warning,” Kynon said curtly. “Remember it. I won’t repeat it.”
Stark made his report on the readiness of the warriors, and went away, and felt Freka’s gaze burning a hole in his back.
He had not seen Berild, in these days of hurry and toil. One evening when he left Kynon and Delgaun in the camp, and climbed the great stairway in the red sunset light, Stark turned aside and went toward the building where she had her quarters. He felt that he had to put the dark, impossible doubt in his mind at rest.
The wind was talking through the hollow coral, the streets of Sinharat vibrated to the murmuring voices that strengthened as the light faded and the wind rose. From the marble walls, the stone faces of the Ramas watched him with fixed and secret smiles.
Stark came into the street he sought and then stopped suddenly. At the far end of the dusky street, he saw the flutter of a white cloak that disappeared as he watched.
He thought that it was Berild, and he followed, but without being conscious of it, he made his footfalls softer and softer, going through the silent, dusky streets after her like a hunting sand-cat.
Where a street turned, he lost her.
Stark stood, undecided which way to search, and the whispering voices in the coral mocked and jeered him.
A narrow way beside him led to a wider street on wh
ich rose a great domed white pile. There was a track in the blown dust and sand that way. He followed it, and reached the gaping open doorway of the building, and peered in cautiously.
It was not much more shadowy inside than in the dusking street. Light still struck through tall windows set above a gallery that ringed the great dome, high up above the floor. The light was enough to show a round, perfectly empty hall, whose only feature was a crumbling inscription that covered all one wall. Berild stood, her back to him, looking up and reading this inscription.
She was silent, but he knew that she was reading from the way her head turned slightly, inclining forward with each few lines. And for a moment, Stark felt a coldness like that of outer space.
For the inscription was in that ancient language of the Ramas which no one for millennia had been able to read.
“Witch-woman,” his instincts clamored. “Not human, not really human. Run!”
He forced himself to stand silent, there in the shadows outside the door. He saw Berild, after a few more minutes of concentration, droop her head as though in pain.
Then she turned brusquely away from the inscription, and her sandals tapped the dusty flagstones. She went toward a stair that spiraled up the side of the vast room, to the encircling gallery. Stark saw her go to one of the tall windows there, and stand looking out with her back still toward him.
The wind chuckled and muttered through the gaping doors and windows, and it covered the sound of Stark’s soft footfalls as he went across the room and up the stair. He came up and stopped, a dozen feet behind the silent woman.
“It’s not as you remembered it, is it, Berild?” he said. “What was it like before, with the blue ocean around it, and the ships?”
XII
Berild did not turn around. It was as though she had not heard his voice. She stood absolutely still—too still.
Stark went to the window and stood beside her. The dying light from across the desert showed her face, with its mocking smile.
“What are you dreaming about now, wild man?”
Eric John Stark Page 7